Blog # 15
" Playtime is Over"
In the article " Playtime is Over" by David Elkind the author is mention that for the last 20 years our children lost 8 hours of free time a week. The consequence of these changes is that kids have less time to talk and share their culture to one another, less time to socializing, as a result kids don't learn basic rules to deal each others, to respect the rights of others, also learning what could be cruel, kinf or fair. Today kids have to adapt to chilhood as it is. Children have their free time with their coaches and they have freedom of choice about what they want to do, also when children exercise they tend to get better scores on their report cards.Basically children should have their freetime back to be able to learn the culture of their friends, socializing to learn simple rules to respect the limits of others and they should learn how to have fun singing, dancing,exercising and playing old games.
Leraning our friends culture is fundamental to agood relationship because when we know more details about our friends, for example, where he or she came from, their food,clothes and language it is easy to understand the way they act or talk. I remenber when I arrived in USA and started to making friends I tried to learn their culture before jugding the way they live or eat. I beleive the same happen with children sometimes, kids can be mean with others because they really understand the culture of their friends. One day my son came back from school and told me that he saw a boy in school wearing a small hat and he found that weird. I tried to explain that that boy is Jewish and on his religion he has to wear this hat bacause for him it means protection. After my simple explanation he said " Oh cool I didn't know that, tomorrow I will tell him that I know about his hat and if we can be friends", at that point I was sure about the importance for the kids to have more free time to share knowledge about everything in their lifes.
Socializing is important for the children to learn how to respect the others, also learning basic rules for a healthy communication. I work in a school and I can see the kids socializing and how their behavior change each day. In my work place I have a student "A" and a boy with autism "B", "A" always used to argue with "B" and being mean with him. Many times " A" used to say that "B" was slow and doesn't know how to do anything. Day by day "A" learned by socialinzing with "B" that he was different and "A" starting respecting him the way he was, also starting helping him with games.
Exercising is fundamental for a better life, before when children had more p;aytime, they play soccer, voleyball, basketball,hide and seek and catch. All these activities enable them to be in better shape and having a healthy mind, as a result they get better result in their tests. Studies prove that kids that don't exercise and watch to much TV their brains has less capacity to think and developing good ideas.
In conclusion, I truly beleive that schools should reevaluate the playtime recess because of paramount importance for the growth and development of our children, making them better adults and healthy families.
